FEEDBACK REQUESTED

[John W. McKone]

>
>     It boiled down to two statements.  Me saying to the customer, "I
>never told
>you this was free." and the customer saying, "You never told me it would cost
>me."
>
>     I'm open for comments here.  I'm toying with the idea of mailing the
>responses to the customer, so please indicate if you would like to remain
>annonymous.
>
>     It's only $35, but I'm at odds with the reasoning.  Usually I don't have
>to deal with this sort of thing, my clientelle knows I don't work for free.
>The customer knew the estimate ball park previous to the call, and had no
>intention of spending that much for the job, but still had me come out anyway.
>
>Larry Fisher 11/11/95
>

Larry,

I always inform customers more than once in an initial phone conversation
that there will be a charge to come out and do an estimate.  There are
enough contractors and businesses out there that will do free estimates,
that there is legitimate confusion as to whether or not this is a service
that carries a fee.

I also never work for free, but in this case I think your client has a
point.  Unless you very specifically state that you are charging for the
visit, and what the fee will be, I don't think you can push very hard for
payment.

Hope this helps.




John McKone, RPT
Operations Manager
Haugen's Pianos
Twin Cities